1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for preventing injury when capping the needle after the needle has been used. p 2. Description of Related Arts
Personel such as doctors and nurses engaged into the medical treatment of patients suffering from a contagious disease are continually exposed to the risk of catching such a contagious disease. The most frequent causes of such contagion are accidents occurring while recapping an injector needle after use. Namely, when an injector needle is inserted into a cap (also called a protector) after use for subsequent treatment, it is difficult to correctly insert the tip end of the injector into the opening of the cap held by the operator, and if the needle misses the opening of the cap, it can penetrate the fingers of the person holding the cap. Such accidents can also occur during subsequent treatment of the needle, for example, the cleaning thereof, while the needle is not capped.
To prevent such injuries caused by an injector needle, a cap for an injector needle has been proposed which is formed as a tube having a outwardly tapered open end forming a flange, to thereby make it easier to insert the injector needle into the cap while holding it and to prevent injury to the fingers. See Japanese Un-examined Utility Model Publication No. 59-16648 and Japanese Un-examined Utility Model Publication No. 59-19146.
This type of cap has a disadvantage in that, in general a large number of injectors must be each tilted with a cap after sterilizing action to prevent contamination by bacteria before subsequent usage, and thereafter packed together as compactly as possible. The above mentioned flanged cap however, does not allow such a compact packing due to the size of the flange provided thereon.
Furthermore, caps having various dimension are required due to the variety of sizes of the needles, and thus a cap having a certain dimension can not be commonly used for different size needles. Accordingly, there is a demand for a new type of flanged cap having a wider usage.